Funding available for a student at the MSc or PhD level in computational materials physics

I have funding available for an excellent graduate student starting between May and September 2016.

The project will focus on the numerical study of atomistic mechanisms associated with aging in steels.

Many macroscopic properties of the materials that surround us depend on the precise position of atoms, at the microscopic level, and of their diffusion over time. In spite of the importance of the question, the study of these mechanisms has long been hindered by the absence of numerical methods able to access the right time scale.

The Kinetic Activation Relaxation Technique, developed in my group, is an off-lattice kinetic Monte Carlo method with on-the-fly construction of event catalog. This method, which is used today by more than half a dozen group around the world, is the only method available today able to follow atomistic kinetics of complex materials over time scale of seconds and more, 1 billion times longer than standard methods.

This projet will apply kinetic ART to the study of impurities and their diffusion in iron as well as pursue algorithmic development to keep this method at the fore-front of the field.

This project involves collaborators in a number of countries, including France and Qatar.